LCA President Kenneth Dotson was elected Chair of the Lincoln Avenue Special Services Area (SSA #35) for 2016-17 at a meeting of SSA meeting held on February 11. One of fifty three SSAs in Chicago, the SSA #35 runs along Lincoln Avenue from Diversey to Webster. SSAs are funded through a small incremental property tax assessed on both commercial and residential property owners in the service area.

SSA #35 was originally authorized for a ten-year period which expired at the end of 2015. Dotson chaired the Advisory Committee for the SSA's reconstitution, a year-long process in 2015 that authorized SSA #35 for an additional fifteen years. Read full article.

Need a Hearty Meal?

Wondering what to do with leftover ingredients in your fridge or pantry items that are about to expire? Free yourself from relying on
recipes to create meals, and learn how to cook with the Peterson Garden Project's March educational programs.Learn more.

If you make it easy for someone to steal from your vehicle, chances are they will. So minimize the opportunity by practicing the following safety steps courtesy of the Chicago Police Department.

Become an LCA Member

If you are not already an LCA member, why not join today. Individual memberships start as low as $20.00 per year. Simply fill out and mail this
application with your check or
join online today via credit card or Paypal.

Our Directors are diverse in age, gender, faith, race and economic status giving LCA's Board diversity in opinion and balancing experience with fresh new ideas. Said another way, our Board is like the neighborhood itself-inclusive and eclectic, yet still seeking ways to grow and improve.

New to Chicago in 1996,
pastor John Hobbs' first gig was at the Interfaith Council for the Homeless. A native of rural Virginia, Hobbs had never lived or worked in a big city. The experience, he says, was a great gift. "I learned about urban poverty and the human tenacity to survive." There, Hobbs and others designed the "housing first" model for the homeless service system. Now common, Chicago was the first big city to institute the model, taking people out of shelters and into housing coupled with social services.
Hobbs liked the work but wanted to be a pastor again. Openly gay, he'd resigned his Presbyterian ministry in Georgia in 1996. He eventually moved his affiliation to the United Church of Christ, which has ordained openly LGBT people since 1972.

In 2005, Hobbs got his wish becoming pastor of Church of the Three Crosses, a progressive UCC/United Methodist Church congregation in Old Town. "This church is a place of refuge, a place of healing." The church offers to the wider community twice-weekly yoga, Buddhist meditation, a book club, AA meetings, Lincoln Park Village potlucks, children's music lessons, recitals and concerts, an annual blessing of the animals, and Sunday service. "We're not hung up on dogma," Hobbs says with a laugh. "We offer a smorgasbord of experiences for the spiritual pathway." Read more.

LCA Director Paul Shea joined 16,000 runners in the 2015 Athens Marathon, taking him up and down the hills that make up Athens, through the arch of the Parthenon, and into the new Olympic stadium across the finish line.

LCA Director Shea at finish

"I was coming up on my 60th birthday and wanted to celebrate in a different way," Shea said. "I'd been a runner for a long time. But after running two Chicago Marathons, I had a foot injury in 2008 that all but ended my running career." He overcame his foot problem--after many visits to doctors, surgeries, and prostheses--by inventing his own brace, which kept his foot level and enabled him to run.

His dream became to run one more marathon. His 60th birthday and his and his wife's 40th anniversary were coming up. They wanted to do something special. His daughter was the one who found out when the
"original" marathon was to be run in Athens. Plans were made and there he was, running in Greece. "Running under the
Parthenon was such a thrill, thinking about its being built 2,000 years ago, and there I was," Shea said.
People were so supportive, Shea said, lining the Marathon route shouting "brava" to women and "bravo" to men. Many of the runners wore real laurel leaves on their heads as in the original Marathons.

The day of the race was in the 80s in brilliant sun, but coming into the Olympic stadium to cross the finish line was moving, he said. He was worn out, and could barely stand up as they placed the finisher's medal around his neck--a replica of the original Olympic stadium. "I was spent, but really it was some way to celebrate my birthday!

I was raised in a rural Southern California desert town.
Joshua Trees outnumbered people. I could ride my horse for miles and miles through sagebrush and mesquite and never see a car, let alone another person. At 11, my grandmother brought us to Chicago to visit our great uncle. Riding out of the city, after a day filled with Marshall Field's, buildings taller than anywhere else in the world, yummy food, stunning architecture, and a lake as big as an ocean, I said to my mother: "I'm going to live here someday."
I'm not a native Chicagoan, so I can speak with authority on the city's power to draw people. And, if a hayseed from rural Southern California can learn enough about this city to give tours, so can you. Read more.

RAINDROPS KEEP FALLIN' IN THE HEART

LCA is excited to announce a collaboration with the
Metropolitan Water Reclamation Districtand the 43rd Ward on the city's new rain barrel program, an initiative offering free rain barrels to qualified residents. Homeowners are required to disconnect their downspouts from the sewer system and connect them to the barrel(s). Each household can have up to four rain barrels in a variety of colors - terra cotta, blue, black & grey!

Rain barrels provide storage space for rainwater from roofs and saves it for when needed. Keeping rain on properties and out of the sewers, rain barrels help revitalize Chicago's storm water reclamation procedures. For more information visit
www.mwrd.org or call (312) 751-6633.
To apply, click here, fill out an application, email the completed application to julia@ward43.org or drop off the application at the 43rd Ward office 2523 N. Halsted St.

The church, founded in 1966, has 100 members. Its three crosses remind us that when Jesus was crucified, there were two others with him. One affirmed Him, the other rejected Him. "No matter who you are on that cross

Hobbs with Ella Jenkins

we welcome you," he says. Hobbs holds Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees from
Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. He was drawn to the ministry after 10 years in the workplace as both a personal quest and because the church seemed the right place to combat post Vietnam War militarization and racial injustice.

Hobbs writes a weekly 10 minute sermon, which takes him 10 to 15 hours to write; he reads the ancient texts in Greek and Hebrew and keeps the daily news in hand. Too, the sermon has to pass the "ghosts" test. Among those he must answer to are his twin brother, who died of ALS in 2013, and LGBT friends. Also victims of AIDS and of the Holocaust. "God in my world is not an omnipotent being directing the world; however, we are called to God in our life, and through our acts of mercy, justice, compassion and grace, God emerges. I always say, 'Show me the God you know.'"

Hobbs is the father of two adults, one a nurse practitioner, the other a critical care physician. In 2012, he married Barry Smith, his partner of nearly 20 years. Smith, a Chicago native, is Project Manager at Prodigious, a brand logistics firm. They live in Lakeview and have three grandchildren.

Hobbs in 2015

Hobbs is a warm and friendly man with a distinctive laugh and Southern accent. He mentors seminarians at Three Crosses and teaches healthy ethics and self care at McCormick Seminary and at University of Chicago Divinity School, where he has taught pastoral care. He plays tennis and more recently took up the violin, which he enjoys as a distraction from the rational and because music in general offers a glimpse into ourselves and the divine.

A

Touring Heart, continued

I first began taking tours in Chicago in 1997 when I started visiting the city regularly. I began giving tours of Chicago, through the
Chicago Greeter program, when I moved here in 2005, first
the Loop then elsewhere. Tour guides, known as Greeters, are volunteers led by Katie Law, a fantastic lady who had her Chicago tourism start with
Lois Wisberg, the city's first
Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. No tipping is allowed-other than the generous praise you'll receive as you wave goodbye to your new friends at the end of a tour. Greeter tours usually lasts from 2-4 hours. Each Greeter signs up for a neighborhood, a
theme, or a
focused tour, based on their knowledge and comfort level.

Greeters, and other tour guides, who showcase our wonderful city, weren't always tour guides. Most have other full-time commitments: jobs, kids, travel, etc. So, even if you have similar commitments, you might still be able to give tours. Chances are, you already play tour guide every time your friends and relatives comes to visit! Nothing beats the feeling of taking visitors from other cities, states, and even countries, to the places we love to visit and/or show off. The best part is that you gain a new found respect for all of the history and potential in this wonderful city.